Biography

American philosophy professor and radical activist, in 1970 one of the six women out of 142 people who have been on America's Most Wanted list.

Educated at Brandeis, the Sorbonne and West Germany, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of California. She became an assistant Professor of Philosophy at UCLA with the reputation as being a racist radical. An outspoken feminist, lecturer and author of three books, she was one of the most prominent political militants of recent decades. She worked with the Black Conference, the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party preaching Marxism, but she couldn't be fired because of regulations against discrimination.

Finally barred from teaching in 1970, she was arrested on charges of aiding a crime. At the trial of the Soledad brothers in the Marin County Courthouse, three black prisoners were accused of killing a guard in prison. One of the prisoner's younger brothers smuggled guns into the courtroom that were later discovered to be registered in Davis' name. Judge Harold Haley, two of the armed convicts and the brothers were killed and a D.A. was paralyzed in the shoot-out. Davis was arrested in New York two months later; after 13 weeks of testimony at her trial, she was acquitted in June 1972.

Davis taught at San Francisco State for several years and by 1991 was teaching at U.C. Santa Cruz, the History of Consciousness Dept. She gave up her Afro hair style but remained dedicated to social change. She ran for Vice-President on the Communist Party ticket in 1980 and in 1984.

In early 1995 she was given the coveted Presidential Chair at UC, aiming to expand the campus feminist and ethnic studies program. The appointment carried a bonus of $75,000.